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Wednesday, 31 October 2012

E L James has got a lot to answer for “Fifty Shades of Grey,” said Nina Ricci’s Peter Copping,
laughing, after his highly eroticized and highly engaging spring show,
which created a palpable frisson out of colliding his typical ladylike
elegance with the provocative accoutrements of punk, fetishdom, and the
contents of the local adults-only emporium. “It’s the other side of the
Ricci woman,” Copping went on to say. “She has toughened up.” Well, in
some ways, yes, but in others, she’s still the same gorgeous, womanly
creature rejoicing in her femininity as she has always done; this is
where all those rippling lingerie fabrics (flutter after flutter of
lace, satin, chiffon, and mousseline) and boudoir colors (shell pink and
oyster and pearl gray) and a decorously restrained mien come in. Yet
elsewhere. . .

Enjoy my suggestions on LYST for your 'Nina Ricci Christmas Wish-List' at the end of this post. LoL, Andrea

Consider Copping’s opening look, for
instance. A black suit that featured a jacket with a trio of chains at
the small of the back, straining to close over a top of fishnet and
suspender straps, worn with an überlean black pencil skirt. From then on, Copping turned his
attention to the likes of tiiiiggght black pants, the reverse side faced
with leather, gauzy, layered, glistening, and gleaming dresses, while
others, more dense and opaque, had sheer peekaboo panels sliced in to
allow for the flash of a garter belt from beneath, and draped skirts
edged with zipper teeth, the better to add a little sexualized bite to
the proceedings. And that’s before we get to the slipper satin skirts
bound at the hips with metal studs, or draped with a sense of tautness
and constraint, before unleashing the satin to let it sway back and
forth. Or, for that matter, the harness made out of grosgrain ribbons
that provided an arresting alternative to a necklace. Yet there were
explorations too of the (nonsexual) subcultures, with hot-pink
hippie-ish dresses, swishing with scarf fringing, and Prince of Wales
tailoring, all strict and shapely, infused with punkdom, but not so much
that it couldn’t go to the office.

Of
course, Copping, a sensitive and nuanced designer, with a finely
attuned antenna for how women want to look and dress, is simply
responding to the fact that if you are a designer engaged in making
clothes that draw (albeit often ironically or playfully) on traditional
tropes of womanhood, you can’t examine femininity without also dealing
with sexuality. It sounds obvious, but no woman alive and kicking today
wants to surrender her sense of self to clothes that disempower her.
Copping’s newly found penchant for the perverse never stooped to
objectification, but kept women firmly in on the (chic) fun. And in
turn, it showed how much confidence he now possesses in being able to
delightfully twist and subvert the codes of Nina Ricci.